Actually took for LS30A
Conley is a great professor! He's very approachable, had extra office hours before the final, and held comprehensive review sessions for the midterm and final. If you're debating between the LS30 series and Math3 series, overall from what I've heard LS is easier. However, if you like traditional math, computations, and numbers you might not like LS that much. I don't like math, but I liked LS. It focuses more on concepts than on numbers. The labs though were pretty terrible. They're difficult, especially if it's your first time coding. You'll have to make sure to get help from the TA's for a lot of it. But labs aren't a big part of your grade and coding is never on the tests. As a whole, the class was very reasonable and pretty enjoyable.

Took LS 30A and LS 30B with Conley in F14 and W15, respectively. The new guinea-pig math for life science students math series. Conley is great at teaching and cares about student learning (frequently held three-hour+ review sessions. That doesn't happen in South Campus, ever).

I thought 30A was harder than 30B. More homework assignments (weekly vs biweekly), labs were significantly harder/longer, and maybe you weren't as accustomed to his exams. Only one high-stakes midterm for 30A, held two midterms for 30B as an experiment. For both classes, we were able to select between two grading schemes, one which weighted the final exam grade significantly more in your final grade for the class. Conley automatically takes the better scheme in calculating your grade.

The 2-hour lab sections are not mandatory, but the assignments suck and you can frequently just mooch answers from your TA depending on their chillness (LS30B TA's were all pretty chill surfer dudes wut, LS30A a little less engaging). Find some upperclassmen friends for help, or find buddies in your lab to collaborate from the get-go (the class grading is not competitive, so don't make it a competitive environment). Although labs did get a lot easier in 30B. Also, major fluke with 30B in that the graders who were hired to grade our labs quit mid-quarter...so labs were only graded on completion (wooo! although I wish I hadn't put in all that effort...)

30B they began BruinCasting (podcasts), 30A they didn't. At least not yet.

Copied and pasted directly from an email at the end of the quarter for LS30A: "approximately 29% of the class ended up with A's, about 30% with B's, and about 37% with C's." Distribution for LS30B final was mostly A's. What I didn't like is that there's barely ever any curve with Conley if anything at all, he made the exams drastically harder from last academic year so the practice exams he gave us were kinda moot and unrealistic, and the average grade for the final exam in 30A was a 67%. Didn't make for such high spirits entering 30B.

Keep in mind life science majors must continue on to take Stats 13, but I haven't heard awful things about it.

Bottom-line: Probz a better experience than the 3-series drudgery, and 31 series sounds awful anyway but then again I'm not a mathy person. The 200 or so LS30 kids develop a sort of tight knit nerd herd over the course of the quarters. Just be realistic about dealing with boring labs, a great professor and very reasonably paced classes, taking diligent notes, swinging by office hours/review sessions consistently, and doing all homework (the textbook is literally a PDF file one of the genius TA's created...very readable and easy to process though). Have fun

TOOK FOR LS 30B

this is coming from someone who got an F in Math 3B

I am about to get an A in LS30B

Conley made math my favorite subject and I'm not even exaggerating it's the only class I look forward to

Take it from someone who thought she was awful at math Conley is the only professor I've ever had who not only knew my name but literally held review sessions until like 11pm just to make sure every single student had their question answered.

By far the best prof I've had here and I would always vouch for him TAKE HIM trust me

ps. stay away from unger for 3b

Course taken: LS 30A
This class was very straightforward for most of the quarter and the farthest we went into actual calculus was basic derivatives and integrals. The labs were time consuming but not tested on the exams. The midterm was not bad; with that being said, Conley crammed a lot of material that many people had not seen before into the last two to three weeks and his final was extremely difficult.

Class I took: LS 30A

So this class is very insightful! Conley is a great teacher who explains a lot, but can be repetitive at times. The labs in this class are probably the most confusing thing you'll do. Sometimes I didn't understand the code I was putting it.

Also, the final this year was extremely difficult. It was nothing like anything we had practiced in class, which makes me skeptical about the grade I will receive in this class. Kinda wish we were prepared for more difficult problems for the final rather than having a breakdown for having no idea what I was presented with.

Great professor, but wish I was more prepared.

Best professor ever!!

I had Conley for LS 30A and LS 30B (not math 3A) and he was an amazing teacher. Conley really cares about his students and is very welcoming during office hours. I went to office hours often to ask for help with labs or homework problems and he does a really great job of explaining concepts in a way that you'll understand. There were a couple of times when his office hours would run 1-2 hours overtime because students had questions and he wanted to be able to help everyone that came to him for help. He's also really friendly and a phenomenal lecturer. His lectures are at a great pace and he has all of the material memorized in his head (rather than on Powerpoint lectures), so he teaches at a speed that you can follow along with and isn't boring to listen to.

One of the TA's, Jane, wrote the textbook for the class and sends out a PDF version so you don't need to buy a book or spend any money on the class. Jane's also really great and helpful during office hours! I think she wrote the labs too, so she will definitely be able to help as well.

The course material isn't too bad. It's not like a typical calculus course because the focus was more on learning how to build and model systems. The weekly labs used Sage to write code, which is a mix between Python and Sage language, and in lab sections we learned how to build graphs and model systems that is directly related to biology (since this class is Calculus for life scientists.) The labs can be a bit challenging. It's definitely a really neat class if you dislike traditional calculus and want to get a small taste of programming and do not want to take a tough CS class.

Overall, for life science majors, Conley and his LS30A/LS30B class is highly recommended if you are a broke college student and want an outstanding professor, want to learn basic Python, or want to be in a class where the professor knows your name and cares about helping you succeed.

I don't necessarily agree with the person who posetd on 01/03. I never took calculus in high school either, and I was definitely scared for college level calc, but Professor Conley was amazing. He extended the review session from 7-8:30 to 7-10:30. This man is such a great guy, personable, and an all around amazing professor. We BEGGED him to teach Math 3c this last quarter (I bugged him a lot about it hahaha)but hopefully he'll teach that too (if not Chowdhury isn't bad. Natee Pitiwan is the best TA). Back to my point, maybe it was just me but I ended up getting around a 97% in the class, without any prior exposure to calculus. Maybe I got lucky or maybe it was because I was only taking 3 classes, but for some reason Conley made me see the light hahaha. Overall, I really recommend him and don't worry if you've never taken calculus before; Conley is, from what I've seen, the BEST math professor on campus and an asset in this department. Terence Tao say what?

I have no complaints about Professor Conley, AT ALL. He is amazing in his entirety and how he teaches.

The class, however, is different depending on YOUR exposure to calculus. I took this class without taking any Calculus in high school (unlike 99% of the class), which then put many at an advantage and easing the amount of time you put into this class. I had another experience.

So don't think its an Easy A just because all these other reviews say it is…it ultimately depends on you and your background in the subject, as of course the class is more or less based on the class average (but with everyone else doing exceptionally great on the midterms and final -- then there is no curve). If you don't feel strong in the subject then preferably take Math 1 beforehand to brush up on precalc skills as that could help.

Quizzes are simple but the midterms are at another level and the final was to everyone's surprise pretty time consuming.

I have no complaints about Professor Conley, AT ALL. He is amazing in his entirety and how he teaches.

The class, however, is different depending on YOUR exposure to calculus. I took this class without taking any Calculus in high school (like 99% of the class), which then put many at an advantage and easing the amount of time you put into this class. I had another experience.

So don't think its an Easy A just because all these other reviews say it is…it ultimately depends on you and your background in the subject, as of course the class is more or less based on the class average (but with everyone else doing exceptionally great on the midterms and final -- then there is no curve). If you don't feel strong in the subject then preferably take Math 1 beforehand to brush up on precalc skills as that could help.

Quizzes are simple but the midterms are at another level and the final was to everyone's surprise pretty time consuming.

I LOVED THIS MAN. Not only was he an awesome professor, but he was such a nice, down-to-earth guy overall. I believe that this was his first class as a professor at UCLA, as he was a TA before, but he definitely did an amazing job. The midterms and final were both fair, and he offered plenty of review for both. He was fantastic at spending time outside of class meeting with people as well. I took AP Calc BC and only got a 3 so I re-took this, but I got an A with no problems in this class, studying only the day before the final. TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. I wish I could have him every quarter </3